Author Studies for Elementary StudentsUsing author studies in the elementary classroom is a wonderful way to get children reading books. It increases reading comprehension and can hook students to a particular genre. For a FREE Eric Carle author study, scroll down. To get the Patricia Polacco author study, click here!
Studying an author with elementary students provides opportunities for: Author studies for elementary students should have authentic ways for children to show their understanding of the text and meaningful activities to extend their comprehension. Considerations for Author StudiesFor example, Patricia Polacco generally writes in the memoir genre and most of her stories all have a family theme or connection to it. Kevin Henkes writes mainly fictional picture books, but his themes are all realistic and deal with childhood worries and issues. Kevin Henkes picture book stories tell as much of the actual story as the words do. Often an author will illustrate a story before writing it, so the text develops from the pictures. How To Do Author Studies for Elementary Students1. First, go to the library and gather as many books as you can by that author. You need to have enough books to use some as read-alouds, some to put out for browsing, and some for literature-study circles. However, I never put them all out at once, and never do they leave my side until I "bless" them. 2. "Blessing" the books is an important step to enticing the children to read them. It's really quite simple - I sit in front of the class at our gathering place and tell them I have a wonderful collection of books to show them. Then I start holding them up, one by one, and reading the title to them. The children know they are free to say, "Oh, I've read that one!" or "I love that story - it's about a...". I don't mind the chatter - it's good, productive talk that is showing me they are interested. This is also a good time to tell them about the author. 3. Some books are then put out for browsing during I PICK time, but always keep some back to read aloud. In my units that are available as downloads, it is expected that any books referred to are read aloud by the teacher. Modeling of how to read the text is critical, especially for those students who are less fluent readers. They need to hear you read it before they will be willing to risk picking it up later to re-read it for themselves (or just to retell the story from the pictures). 4. Each day or two, read a different book out loud. Explore it through reciprocal teaching. In an Eric Carle author study, use the book The Tiny Seed to predicting, chart the story in a circle and summarize at the end. Check for understanding at critical points in the story. This comprehension strategy is explained in-depth in The Daily Five, a wonderful resource that can be purchased through Primary Education Oasis aStore. Once the story has been read a few times, it goes out to the browsing shelf for children to reread on their own or with a buddy. If I do not think a page lends itself well to meet my goals and objectives, I will not use it. It is your choice how you want your students to work on the pages in my author studies. There are years where you have students who love to be independent and can handle it. There are also years where most of your class seems to struggle and need lots of support and scaffolding from you. There is no right or wrong way, except to hand them a packet and expect them to do it - please do not do that. 6. Always take time to work with the children on the author's style of illustrating. We usually write our own stories in the same style as the author, then illustrate them in a similar style. If my students are not ready for that, them we write out a summary together using a summary chart, put each part of the summary on the top half of large butcher paper, then illustrate underneath. The key is to illustrate in the same style as the books. Often I get the art teacher to work with me on this. Our art teacher uses two class periods to work with my students on illustrations for Little Cloud when we do our Eric Carle author study. Any longer, and the students start to lose interest. Once you sense the enthusiasm starting to wane, then stop. You do not have to read every single book and do every activity to have meaningful author studies. It's better to leave them wanting more than to have them never wanting to read another book by that author ever again.  Free Eric Carle author study from Primary Education Oasis!Click on Eric's picture to download a ready-to-go unit for your classroom. Looking for Patricia Polacco author studies? Click here!
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5. Work together, small group or independently, on author study pages.